25 comments:

The why is that the Supreme Court has said governments much be elected on a one-person, one-vote, which requires reapportionment after a Census (and no, this doesn't apply to the U.S. Senate, but it does to state and local governments).

You should be able to take this data and figure out which districts are going to have to be bigger or smaller:

Oh, and I will start by suggesting 8, 5, and 6 will likely get smaller, and 9, 1, and 4 will likely get bigger. 2, 3, and 7 seem like they could go either way (this is just eyeballing this map, keeping in mind a small net population loss would be on trend):

Aye. It's one thing to say a district will grow or shrink because it has to, it's another thing to say, "Manchester is going here, South Point Breeze is going here, let's draw a line here through Dowd's district and..."

return the four south/central oakland districts to the fold. Give two to Peduto and two to Lavelle. Oakland is broke into 3 council districts none of which has oakland as it center. peduto has Shadyside;Lavelle the Hill and Kraus the South Side. Its not like three is better than one!!

As for how the borders get drawn--lots of ways to do it, of course, but 1 and 6 can swap some North Side turf and get close, then add in 7's excess and a bit of the over the river 3 to top off 6. 2 & 4 can also adjust their border and get close, and again maybe take some 3. 3 gets topped back up with most of 5's excess--could be a big chunk of the south of the Mon 5 at that point. 8 gives 9 what it needs, plus the last bit of 5's excess, and you are done.

All nine of them have interests -- they wear them on their sleeves, and that's the beauty of it. BrianTH, now that you have some data, I'm sure some of the committee would appreciate a non-partisan proposal or two being put into circulation. Just to be fair and thorough, you might want to consider not only population shifts but glance over at shifts in Likely [springtime Democratic] Voters.

you might want to consider not only population shifts but glance over at shifts in Likely [springtime Democratic] Voters

For example what would happen if you re-ran this year's primary except with 800 or more voters from District 8 now voting in District 9? It's a good bet we'd be pondering how Councilwoman Prater-Holliday will do on the job.

"The first thing you have to do is draw 2 districts that are majority-minority and then fill in the rest."

So where does this gerrymander take us?What are the demographic shifts in the minority communities like the hill look like 10 years out? I think there are only 2500 registered voters in the Hill for example...

Most reapportionments are a jagged balance between "least harm" and "maximize political advantage."

These things are baselined with an allowable deviation such that it is unlikely to have 9 districts each with identical population.

Technology allows for reapportioners to get within 3% or less deviation from some number, in this case, 33,967, but you're going to see some deviation, especially where a small deviation allows for "least harm" or more aptly, "least change."

District 1 has seen the least change of all districts over the past two reapportionments largely because of geography, but I agree that it will have to add some territory, unless a larger deviation is tolerable.

If, on the other hand, "maximize political advantage" is the prevailing consideration, then sadly there are multitude of ways to achieve that especially if you appointed a mathematician and a lawyer to the panel. Gerrymandering, in the computer age no less than the paper age, require BOTH a mathematician to crunch the numbers and an attorney to provide legal cover.

Oh wait, Shields appointed an attorney and Peduto appointed a mathematician.

TT: No weed. Drugs and alcohol are not permitted because they endanger everything we're fighting for. However a couple of hookahs make an appearance, and the kids are into these "mocha cappuccino" and cherry flavored blends.

We protested UPMC I hear the other day (and I missed it -- we have to go back eventually) and we were at the Highmark building protesting PNC's use of billions in TARP money to buy another bank and further consolidate the banking industry, while extorting $50 million from our broke city in the form of tax increment financing (TIFs).

Just to be clear, I wasn't predicting the outcome of the redistricting process--that's a political question. My "proposal" was just a think-piece, basically along the lines of "How could you get the districts back to their target number without doing too much to disrupt the current outlines of the districts?"

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